A detailed synopsis of Peter Singer’s Practical Ethics
June 10, 2018 No Comments
When I took the philosophy class based on this book in college, I wasn’t mature enough to
take the subject seriously. After casually picking the book up again more than a decade later,
I’ve realized that I would have been a better and more thoughtful person had I done so. I’ve
written this synopsis to allow me to refresh myself on the book’s arguments over the course of
my life. It’s intended to be useful as substitute for reading the book as well. I find almost all
of the arguments in this book convincing, and if you disagree with any of the conclusions
here, I encourage you to read the full arguments in the book. Singer is one of the most
eloquent and careful philosophers I’ve encountered, and reading his work is enjoyable. This
book is also full of references to real cases in which the ethical theories apply, which I have
mostly omitted here in the interest of space.
Page numbers refer to the 1993 2nd edition paperback. My own thoughts are in the footnotes.
This document is about 16 pages long in print.
1. About Ethics (“morality”)


Ethics is not (1):
o Concerned in particular with sexuality
o Impractical. Consequentialists (including the author) are concerned only with
real world effects.
o Defined by religion. Ethical theories need not refer to religion.
o Relative. “X is wrong” does not mean “My society disapproves of X.”
Otherwise, all non-conformist moral opinions would be factually incorrect, and
the idea of moral progress would be nonsensical.
o Subjective. “X is wrong” does not mean “I disapprove of X.” If it did, no one
could disagree about ethics.
Ethics is (for the purpose of this book) (8):
o Based in reason.
o Universal. Ethical principles and judgments are the same from all points of
view. They do not contain the concept of “I”, and therefore give equal weight
to equal interests, regardless of who holds the interests. This equal
consideration of interests leads naturally to a theory of “interest utilitarianism”,
in which ethical judgments are calculations of interest maximization. (As
opposed to classical utilitarianism, which restricts interests to pleasure.) Other
universal ethical theories (rights, justice, etc.) require further steps to justify.
This book is written assuming an interest utilitarian viewpoint, which the
author holds and will not further defend here. The implications of other
popular ethical frameworks are also considered in specific cases.
2. Equality and its implications

The basis of equality (16) – What does it mean to say in a moral sense that all
humans are equal?
o It does not mean that all humans are equal in all senses – people differ in
height, athletic ability, IQ, etc.
It does not mean that all humans possess a “moral personality” (a la Rawls) –
infants and some intellectually disabled humans have little or no concept of
morality.
o It means the “principle of equal consideration of interests” – that all who
are affected by our actions should have their interests weighed evenly.
 This principle prohibits consideration of anything except interests in
moral judgments. Individual traits, e.g. race, sex, intelligence, are only
to be considered insofar as they affect the individual’s interests
involved in the decision.
 This principle does not entail equal treatment, for one person’s interests
may be more sensitive[1] or better served than another’s in a given
situation.
 The principle of declining marginal utility will generally (but not
always) incline us to distribute treatment so as to closer equalize
wealth/utility.
Equality and genetic diversity (26)
o Race: If different races have different average IQ’s, this does not justify
consideration of race in moral decisions because 1) individual variance is
higher than group variance; and 2) it does not appear that normal variance in
IQ significantly affects the level of person’s interests, e.g. ability to feel pain,
sorrow, joy, excitement, etc.
o Sex: For the same reasons listed above, average sexual differences in
psychological traits such as aggression or visual or verbal ability do not justify
sexual discrimination in moral judgments.
From equality of opportunity to equality of consideration (38)
o The Western satisfaction with wealth disparity in the context of equal
opportunity is flawed because 1) equal opportunity is not realistic due to
differences in education quality and upbringing, and 2) truly equal opportunity
leaves welfare up to the luck of genetically inherited ability. Ability does not
strongly track interests, so it is not a good basis for a moral framework of
economic justice.
o The socialist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to
his needs” seems the most ethical economic system from a principle of equal
consideration of interests, but has major practical problems in implementation.
Extreme taxation causes emigration and tax evasion, and the elimination of
private enterprise causes black markets. No economic solution is proposed
here, only the suggestion that we work towards wider recognition of the
principle.
Affirmative action (44)
o It may make sense to focus on racial and sexual inequality because of their
highly divisive nature to society. Given that true equality of opportunity is
impractical to realize, a more practical method of combating inequality (and
thereby maximizing total interests) may be preferential treatment of
disadvantaged groups (“affirmative action”, or “reverse discrimination”), e.g.
in university admissions.
o Objections to affirmative action in university admissions:
 It violates the rights of those discriminated against.
 Universities do not base admissions on the rights of applicants.
They discriminate explicitly on intelligence, which reflects not
an applicant’s rights (or interests), but the university’s goals.
o




Racial discrimination is just another form of discrimination
based on university goals – in this case racial equality. In order
to criticize a university’s admissions policy, we must criticize
the goals it is trying to achieve, not the rights that it violates.[2]
 It gives less weight to the interests of majority members.
 Racial discrimination against minorities in the past often has
been about giving less weight to their interests. But society as a
whole has strong interests in diversity and equality, so reverse
discrimination in pursuit of those goals need not be about giving
less weight to the interests of majority members.
 It will fail to promote equality, because it reinforces inferiority
stereotypes and normalizes a system of racial discrimination that could
be vulnerable to abuse in the future.[3]
 This is a strong argument. Affirmative action may indeed fail,
but in the absence of good alternatives, it seems worth a try.
Equality and disability (52) – We should take care to consider the interests of
physically and intellectually disabled people, for often their disability affects what
they can do, but not the level of their interests. Reverse discrimination may in fact be
more effective for the disabled than for other disadvantaged groups because their
central needs are often hindered by their disabilities, and therefore their interests can
be greater benefited.
3. Equality for animals?



Racism and Speciesism (55) – Just as the principle of equal consideration of interests
does not count race as something to be weighed in moral decisions,[4] neither does it
count species. We must consider suffering as an interest wherever it can occur, and
consider like suffering equally with like suffering. This means that animals must be
part of our consideration, although different species will differ in the level of suffering
that they can experience.
Speciesism in practice (62)
o Animals as food – In developed societies, meat is a luxury, not a necessity.
When considering the ethics of meat, we are thus comparing our interest in
luxury to the animals’ interest in welfare. The factory farming system mistreats
animals so badly for the entirety of their lives that this calculation is usually
clear, and we should not support this farming system.
o Experimenting on animals – Many cruel experiments are performed on
animals for product safety tests or general research. These tests can be justified
if they provide great benefit to humans, but often the utility calculation is
contaminated by speciesism. If the animals involved were replaced by
orphaned humans with permanent brain damage and a similar level of capacity
to suffer, most of these experiments would cease.
o Other forms of speciesism include our attitudes toward the fur trade, hunting,
circuses, rodeos, zoos, and the pet business.
Some objections (68)
o How do we know that animals can feel pain?
 They behave in the same way that we do when in pain.
 They share our nervous system.
o Animals eat each other, so why shouldn’t we eat them?
 Most carnivores must hunt to survive.
We consider other behaviors of animals “beastly” and subhuman, not to
be emulated.
 Animals are incapable of considering their alternatives and making
ethical decisions.
 Even if eating meat is evolutionarily natural for humans, this does not
show that it is ethical, as many evolutionarily natural behaviors are
unethical (e.g. rape, murder).
Differences between humans and animals
 It may be the case that most animals, although sentient, are not selfconscious or autonomous. There is no clear reason, however, to think
that this entails that their interests (such as suffering) are less important
and should be considered with less weight. Some intellectually disabled
humans lack these traits, yet we do not feel that it is permissible to
subject them to experimentation or force-feeding.
Ethics and reciprocity
 Contractualists consider ethics to apply only to parties to a social
contract of reciprocal behavior, which would exclude animals. Even if
the origin of human ethics is (dubiously) contractual in nature, this does
not justify it. This system also excludes humans incapable of
consenting to reciprocal contracts, such as young children, the severely
intellectually disabled, and future generations.

o
o
4. What’s wrong with killing?


The ethics of taking life is less straightforward than the ethics of suffering.
Human life (83)
o In judging the ethics of killing, there are two definitions of the term “human
being” we can use:
 “Member of the species Homo Sapiens”
 “Person” – a rational and self-conscious being
o The value of a Homo Sapiens’ life
 As discussed earlier, species is not a relevant boundary for ethical
judgments, and we should not base our judgments about killing on it.
The Western orthodoxy to the contrary comes from the influence of
Christianity on European civilization.
o The value of a person’s life
 Some useful distinctions:
 Critical (act) vs. intuitive (rule) utilitarianism. The former
suggests that we should always act in a way that maximizes
utility; the latter that we should act in accordance with rules that
almost always maximize utility. The argument for intuitive
reasoning is practical: we often do not have the information or
time to accurately determine which act will maximize utility.
 Classical vs. preference utilitarianism. The former counts
only conscious states such as pleasure, happiness, and their
opposites in moral calculations. The latter includes in addition
the satisfaction or thwarting of preferences. The author’s
“interest utilitarianism” is most similar to the latter.
 Killing a person thwarts her desires.


To a classical utilitarian, this is not directly morally relevant.[5]
(The fact that the future pleasure of life is prevented is relevant
but not special to persons.)
 To a preference utilitarian, this is morally wrong.
 Killing a person may make other persons anxious about being killed
themselves.
 This is morally bad according to both classical and preference
utilitarians.
 It does not apply to secret killings. An intuitive utilitarian may
however still argue that one should act according to a blanket
rule against killing.
o Does a person have a right to life?
 Not according to a utilitarian perspective. It is, however, an extremely
popular idea, and will be considered throughout the book.
 On one relatively sensible theory, one has a right to life if one has or at
one time had the desire of having a continued existence. This applies to
sleeping persons and persons not currently thinking about such a desire,
but not to non-self conscious animals, fetuses, or infants.
o Respect for autonomy
 The killing of an unwilling person is violation of that person’s
autonomy. An absolute right to autonomy does not arise from a
utilitarian viewpoint, but this also is a very popular concept and will be
considered throughout the book.
 Although rights to life and autonomy are non-utilitarian concepts, from
a practical intuitive stance, a utilitarian is likely to endorse rules that
assign such rights.
o Summary – Reasonable objections to killing a person arise from four different
theories of the value of life:
 It thwarts the person’s preferences (Preference utilitarianism)
 It puts other persons in a state of fear (Classical utilitarianism)
 It violates the person’s right to life (Theory of rights)
 It violates the person’s autonomy (Theory of autonomy)
Conscious life (101) – Are there principles that apply to the broader category of
conscious beings, including both persons and non-persons (e.g. infants, most
animals)?
o Should we value conscious life?
 Conscious life can contain happiness and suffering. To any utilitarian,
increasing happiness is good, and increasing suffering is bad.
 This concept is not straightforward when applied to the creation and
destruction of life. There are two main viewpoints on the issue:
 The “total view” – The experience of all conscious beings,
existing or potential, should be taken into account. This has the
awkward implication that there is a moral obligation to have as
many happy children as we can, since choosing not to have a
happy child reduces happiness just as much as killing a happy
child.
 The “prior existence view” – Only the experience of already
existing beings should be taken into account. This has the
awkward implication that it is not wrong to choose to conceive
a child who one knows will have a miserable life (e.g. due to a
o
genetic defect).[6] To avoid this implication, one must
somehow defend the claim that future happy lives don’t count,
but future miserable lives do.[7]
 Ending a pleasant life is wrong on either view if nothing else is
involved in the decision.
Comparing the value of different lives
 If a life contains a higher degree of happiness or preference, it should
be given higher value in a utilitarian decision. In what appears to be a
continuous scale of capacity for consciousness across the animal
kingdom, we can say that the lives of more complex or highfunctioning beings are probably more valuable than the lives of others.
The calculation is difficult because we do not have a precise way to
measure the level of consciousness of other beings. A ranking seems
possible in principle, but it should be noted that it need not coincide
with species boundaries.
5. Taking life: Animals




Can a non-human animal be a person? (110) – Yes. Many experiments have
demonstrated that chimps, gorillas, and orangutans are self-conscious and rational to a
significant degree. These include demonstrations of forward planning, cooperation,
deception, and self-reference in social behavior, puzzle solving, and the use of human
sign language. Some evidence of these things also exists for other animals, such as
dolphins, whales, dogs, cats, and pigs.
Killing non-human persons (117) – Species is morally irrelevant, and the same
reasons hold for not killing non-human persons as human persons. We should avoid
killing such animals without strong reasons to.
Killing other animals (119) that are conscious but non self-conscious[8]
o Killing conscious creatures can be wrong indirectly if done inhumanely, or in
a way that causes suffering to other animals that remain.
o It can be wrong directly if it eliminates happiness that would otherwise exist.
But what if the animal is replaced?
o Replaceability – Is harm done if a being is killed painlessly and without side
effects, and then replaced with a similar being? On the “prior existence view”,
the answer is yes. On the “total view”, the answer is not straightforward.
 For conscious but non self-conscious beings, it seems not to be a
problem. It can be compared with the lapse in consciousness that
occurs during sleep. Since such beings are not self-conscious, it does
not matter that when consciousness resumes, identity has changed.
 The situation is different for self-conscious beings (persons), who have
preferences which are thwarted when they are killed. Creating a new
being with new preferences does not seem to make up for the loss. The
calculation comes down to how much value we assign to the package
deal of creating and then satisfying preferences, which seems to depend
on the details of the specific preferences.[9] We do not want to create a
headache so that we can satisfy it with pills, but we may want to create
a libido so that we can satisfy it with sex. In general it would seem that
in the presence preferences, existing persons are not replaceable.
Conclusions (131)
o
We should be careful with the conclusion reached here that it is not wrong to
kill some animals if they are then replaced. It applies only to animals that are
not self-conscious and are killed painlessly and without side effects such as
distress to family members. This ideal situation is rare in practice and is far
from the factory farming system used in developed societies.
6. Taking life: The embryo and the fetus




The conservative position (138): It is wrong to kill an innocent human being, which a
fetus becomes at conception. At what other point could it gain this status?
o Birth: No, since some prematurely born infants are less developed than some
unborn ones.
o Viability (used in Roe v. Wade): No, since the advent of viability depends on
the state of medical technology in the mother’s society.
o Quickening (the first noticeable movement of the fetus): No, since we do not
say that paralyzed adults are no longer human beings.
o Consciousness: No, since there is no reason to think that consciousness has a
sharp line of onset.
Some liberal arguments (143) against the conservative position, all of which fail:
o “Outlawing abortion drives it underground.” This may be true, but is not an
argument that abortion is not wrong.
o “Abortion is a victimless crime.” If abortion is murder, this is clearly false.
o “Even if abortion is murder, a woman has a right to do as she wishes with her
own body.” This claim is based on a theory of autonomy rights and runs
counter to the consequentialist view, which would hold that if refusing to
undergo 9 months of pregnancy would cause a person’s death, then doing so
would be unethical because the value of the life outweighs the inconvenience.
The value of fetal life (149)
o The problem with the conservative position is what is meant by the term
“human being”. If we mean “homo sapiens”, then the first premise is
unfounded, since species has no moral significance. If instead we mean
“person”, then the first premise does not apply to a fetus at any stage, since
fetuses are not rational and self-conscious.
o Instead of trying to sharply categorize the fetus, we should think directly in
morally relevant terms: interests. If the fetus has interests, such as the ability to
experience pain, we should weigh its interests equally with the like interests of
any conscious being. Many farm animals are more mentally developed than a
late stage human fetus, and if our interest in a tasty meal outweighs their
interest in life, then the strong interests involved an abortion decision may
outweigh a fetus’s interest in life.
The fetus as potential life (152) – The conservative position can be modified by
replacing “innocent human being” with “potential person”. Is it wrong to kill a
potential person?
o None of the four reasons against killing persons from Chapter 4 / Human Life
apply to potential persons.
o The total view of utilitarianism suggests that it could be wrong if it deprives
the world of a valuable future being, but this argument does not apply to
abortions by parents who will have a child later instead, and it applies to
contraception and abstinence as equally as to abortion.



The status of the embryo in the lab (156) – Does embryonic research harm a human
being?
o Like a fetus, an embryo is not a person and its status as Homo Sapiens is
irrelevant.
o An embryo up to 14 days old can split into two embryos – identical twins – so
it does not make sense to think of it as an individual human being.
o Unlike a fetus, a lab embryo will not survive if left alone (in case we think
viability is a morally relevant aspect of abortion).
o With IVF technology, an egg and some sperm in a dish are about as likely to
become a person as an embryo in a dish is. If we consider the “potential
person” argument against experimentation, we should be equally concerned
about not harming eggs and sperm that are in proximity, which is implausible.
Making use of the fetus (163) – There is promising research indicating that
transplants of fetal tissue could help cure some serious illnesses such as Parkinson’s
and Alzheimer’s, or save the life of another fetus. Is it wrong to allow the use of an
aborted fetus for this purpose? This depends on how the interests of the fetus compare
to the other interests involved.
o If the fetus is not conscious, it has no interests. Prior to 18 weeks, a fetus lacks
the brain structures associated with pain and consciousness, so prior to this
time the fetus cannot be wronged by its abortion or use. (This assumes that it is
not allowed to develop into a disabled child.) After this time, it could be wrong
to do these things.
o The allowance of use of fetal tissue in medicine could harm women by putting
them into situations where they are pressured to abort a pregnancy (and
perhaps begin one) to provide such tissue for the good of society or the good of
loved ones. Care must be taken to avoid such coercion.
Abortion and infanticide[10] (169) – Birth does not mark a special point in the
development of an infant’s interests. Therefore, in situations where late stage abortion
is justified, early stage infanticide is also justified. We reel from this thought for
historical reasons rooted in Christianity that are irrelevant to ethics.
o Like fetuses, very young infants (< 1 month, conservatively) are not persons
(self-conscious, rational beings), so the reasons against killing persons in
Chapter 4 / Human Life do not apply. As in the case of mature fetuses, the
reasons against killing conscious beings do apply.
o The difficulty in drawing a line at the point when an infant becomes a person
does not justify drawing an obviously wrong one (e.g. birth). In practice it may
be prudent to draw the legal distinction at birth, but this is not an ethically
defensible distinction, and it may in fact be more prudent to draw it a short
time after birth (e.g. 1 month), as will be discussed in the next chapter.
7. Taking life: Humans


Euthanasia is the killing of those who are incurably ill and in great pain or distress, for
the sake of sparing their suffering.
Types of euthanasia (176)
o Voluntary – carried out at the request of the person
o Involuntary – carried out with intentional disregard to the wishes of the person
o Non-voluntary – carried out on a human incapable of understanding the choice
between life and death, who has not previously indicated his wishes. This
includes infants and some severely disabled adults.



Justifying infanticide and non-voluntary euthanasia (181)
o Infants: Infant euthanasia is a type of non-voluntary euthanasia. As discussed
last chapter, just like a fetus, a young infant is not a person and cannot be said
to have a right to life, disabled or not. A decision about infanticide comes
down to weighing all of the interests involved.
 In the case of infants disabled so badly that their lives will not be worth
living (e.g. spina bifida), the calculation is straightforward, and it
would likely be wrong to allow the child to live for the sake of
satisfying the desires of others.
 In the case of infants disabled badly, but not so badly that their lives
would not be worth living (e.g. hemophilia), the calculation is less
straightforward. The “prior existence” view indicates that killing this
infant would be wrong, but the “total” view does not in the case that the
child will be replaced with another. It is common for a woman to abort
a fetus with a pre-natal diagnosis of hemophilia in order to have
another child without the disability, and if we are comfortable treating
fetuses as replaceable (see Chapter 5 / Killing other animals), we
should be similarly comfortable treating newborn infants as such, since
neither are persons capable of self-consciousness.[11] (If adoption is a
realistic option, then this replaceability argument does not hold.) Some
disabilities go undetected until birth, so this conclusion has practical
import.
o Other non-voluntary life and death decisions: Many accident victims who are
in vegetative states or comas with no hope for recovery have not previously
expressed a wish to be euthanized in this condition. Such humans are no longer
persons (self-conscious and rational), so cannot be said to have a right to life.
The decision to continue or end their lives should be made on the basis of any
conscious experiences they may continue to have. If they are unconscious,
their lives have no intrinsic value, and if the balance of their experience is
negative, it would be against their interests to continue life support.[12]
Justifying voluntary euthanasia (193) – Some persons with incurable diseases wish
to die, but cannot kill themselves. Should a doctor be able to end their lives?
o Is it wrong for a doctor to do so? Do the reasons from Chapter 4 against killing
persons apply in such cases?
 The concern that a policy allowing this would put other people in fear
of their lives does not apply.
 Concern for the satisfaction of a person’s preferences counts in favor of
voluntary euthanasia.
 The theory of a right to life based on a person’s desire for continued
existence does not apply.
 Respect for autonomy counts in favor of voluntary euthanasia.
o A policy allowing voluntary euthanasia must be equipped to prevent
exploitation resulting in the killing of persons not truly wishing to die, for
example through pressure by family members, temporary insanity, or outright
murder disguised as euthanasia. It is likely that some such cases would slip
through the cracks of any real policy, but these cases are to be weighed against
the alternative of forcing a much larger number of persons in terrible and
permanent pain to continue living against their will.
Not justifying involuntary euthanasia (200) – If the person wishes not to die, then
the reasons against killing discussed above all apply, and euthanasia is not justified.


Active and passive euthanasia (202) – It is common humane medical practice to
allow infants with severe disabilities and disabled adults with severe complications to
die instead of artificially prolonging their lives. If it is right to allow them to die, why
is it wrong to kill them? We tend to perceive a moral difference between acts and
omissions, but this is not justified in an ethic based on consequences, since often an
act and omission have the same consequences. In many cases, the consequences of
painlessly killing are in fact better than the consequences of simply allowing to die. In
such cases, we are often more humane to animals than we are to people.
The slippery slope: From euthanasia to genocide? (213) – Some worry that
allowing active euthanasia could remove a clear cut line against killing and eventually
lead to unjustified killing on a mass scale similar to what occurred during the
holocaust. It is hard to see how euthanasia laws based on respect and concern for the
interests of the patients could lead to policies of killing them against their will. A
euthanasia policy based on sound ethical principles may in fact provide society with
firmer ground for resisting unjustified killing.
8. Rich and Poor



Some facts about poverty (218) – Approximately one quarter of the world’s
population lacks the resources to meet basic biological needs for food, clothing, and
shelter. Over 10 million children under the age of five die every year from
malnutrition and infection.
Some facts about wealth (220) – North Americans consume 900 kg of grain per
capita annually, compared to 180 kg in poor countries. The difference comes from
feeding grain to animals for meat. The world produces enough food to feed everyone –
the problem is in distribution and waste. The UN has set an aid target for wealthy
nations of 0.7% of GNP. The UK gives 0.31% (compared with 5.5% spent on
alcohol), and the US gives 0.15%.
The moral equivalent of murder? (222) – We routinely choose to spend money on
luxuries instead of giving it to people whose lives it would save. If acts and omissions
are morally equivalent, is this equivalent to murder? Examining some relevant
differences shows that it is not, but that it is more serious than most of us imagine.
o Motivation: By not giving, we do not intend to kill anyone. This is unlike
murder, but is similar to the case manslaughter by a speeding driver who
enjoys driving fast and is indifferent to the consequences.
o Difficulty: It is much easier to avoid murder than to save all the lives we can.
This does not make a difference to the consequences, but it does make a
difference to how much we can blame people without being counterproductive.
o Certainty: Murder is more certain to end a life than giving is to save one. This
matters, but not giving can again in this sense be compared to the case of a
reckless driver who speeds through crosswalks without caring about the
consequences.
o Identifiability: If we murder a person, we can identify the victim; if we give
aid, we often cannot identify the beneficiary. This makes no moral difference.
If a salesperson sells products that he knows will cause an illness fatal to a
percentage of buyers, we hold him responsible even though he cannot identify
who will die.
o Responsibility: Unlike in the case of murder, we have not created the situation
in which a hungry person dies. From a consequentialist perspective, this does

not matter. It does make a difference on a theory of rights that requires us only
to avoid actively harming others, but such a theory is difficult to justify.
The obligation to assist (229) – If I walk by a child who is drowning in a puddle, and
in order to save him I must ruin my clothes, it is obvious that I should save him. What
is the morally relevant difference between this situation and the actual current
situation in which I can save a starving person overseas with a similarly trivial
sacrifice?
o The argument for an obligation to assist
 Premise 1: If we can prevent something bad from happening without
sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.
 Premise 2: Extreme poverty is bad.
 Premise 3: There is some extreme poverty that we, as individuals, can
prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance.
 Conclusion: We ought to prevent some extreme poverty.
o Objections to the argument
 Taking care of our own: The principle of equal consideration of
interests rejects our instinct to favor those close to us. Giving our
children only as much as we give each starving African child could be
psychologically devastating and practically disastrous, but the
argument does not require this – only that we make sacrifices
insignificant compared to the harm that we can prevent.
 Property rights: If we believe that we have a right to our legally
obtained property, and someone else in need has no right to it, we
might still stay that it is morally wrong not to give, even though within
our rights.[13] But the popular theory of property rights is inconsistent
with a consequentialist ethical viewpoint in the first place.
 Population and the ethics of triage: What if feeding poor people will
simply lead to more poor people in the future? Should we instead allow
nature to limit the populations in poor countries to sustainable levels?
This would mean allowing millions or billions to die of
malnourishment, and would only be acceptable if we were confident
that it would prevent even greater suffering in the future. But we cannot
be confident of that, and we can in fact provide aid that helps limit
population growth while relieving suffering, such as education,
contraception, and farming technology.
 Leaving it to the government: The government may be a more effective
giver than private charities due to its greater resources. If we give
privately, do we allow the government to shirk this responsibility?
There is no reason to be confident about this. We should both give
privately and actively encourage government aid.
 Too high a standard?
 Does human nature make us incapable of altruism? Clearly not.
 Giving up luxuries to instead help the poor would sacrifice
things that make a well-rounded life. But we would not think it
acceptable for a doctor at a train crash to help a fraction of the
victims and then go to the opera.
 Is it counterproductive to advocate such a high standard?
Possibly, but this has no bearing on the ethics of individual
giving. The public recommendation that might result in the
highest amount of giving could well be less than the amount
that ethically, we should really give. Perhaps 10% of income is
reasonable amount to advocate, since it has successful historical
precedent in religious communities.
9. Insiders and Outsiders




The shelter (247): Imagine a nuclear fallout scenario where a group of 10,000 people
in a city had invested in a luxurious underground bunker, which could be extended to
accommodate another 10,000 people for the 8 years of expected fallout danger by
eliminating all luxuries (swimming pools, tennis courts, etc.). If you were one of the
10,000 people in the bunker, how many of the people clamoring outside the door
would you vote to admit?
The real world (249): There are about 15 million refugees in the world,[14] most of
which are receiving refuge in poor neighboring countries. For many such people,
repatriation will not be an option in the foreseeable future, and the countries where
they are currently living cannot support them with a decent standard of living. The
only other option is resettlement to richer nations, and this is granted to only 2% of
them. The refusal of richer nations to accept significant numbers of refugees also
causes poorer countries to tighten their borders, since they know that refugees that
they admit will not be resettled elsewhere.
The ex-gratia approach (252): Most Western countries adopt the approach that they
have no obligation to take in refugees, except in the case of granting asylum to the few
who manage to reach their borders. (The curious asylum exception may be due to the
proximity, identifiability, or small number of such refugees, or the perceived
difference between acts and omissions.)
The fallacy of the current approach (255): We should weigh the consequences of
our refugee policies on all who are affected, using the principle of equal consideration
of interests. There are certain and uncertain consequences of admitting larger numbers
of refugees. The certain benefit to the refugee is as large and fundamental a benefit as
any person can enjoy. The downsides quoted by those who wish not to admit larger
numbers of refugees are almost all uncertain. These include burdens on the welfare
system, the criminal system, the environment, the economy, race relations, and
cultural identity. The presence of diverse, hard-working and grateful refugees may in
fact create benefits in these areas. It is likely that there is some number of refugees that
would cause these potential downsides to be comparable to the interests of the
refugees, but that number is far greater than the number who are actually admitted
today. We can do great good by increasing our refugee intake gradually and carefully
monitoring the effects on society. The real-world situation is ethically very similar to
the case of the fallout shelter.
10. The Environment


The Western tradition (265): Predominant Western attitudes towards the
environment come from the traditions of the Old Testament and Greek philosophy,
both of which view the environment, including all non-human life, as subservient to
humans and of no moral concern. Even if we accept this view, preservation of the
environment is still extremely important because of our complete dependence on it.
Future generations (269): In addition to our dependence on it for survival, a rich
natural environment greatly enriches people’s lives. It is valued as something of
immense beauty, a reservoir of scientific knowledge, and source of unique recreational




opportunities. Some such resources cannot be replaced once destroyed, such as the
ecology of a virgin forest. In our utility calculation, we must therefore count the effect
of such destruction on all future generations of humans in comparison with the
economic gain that might be created for the next few. We are not accustomed to
thinking so far into the future.[15] [16]
Is there value beyond sentient beings? (274):
o We should reject the human-centered ethic, since it is speciesist. We should
include the interests of all beings who can have interests, which includes
sentient animals.
o The killing of non-human persons is generally wrong, and the killing of
sentient non-persons (presumably most animals) is also wrong if the lives they
would otherwise lead would be positive and they will not be replaced. This
may very well be the case for the millions of animals that die when a valley is
dammed and flooded.
o Some people also believe that we should count non-sentient entities, such as
trees or species as a whole, in the moral calculation. Should we?
Reverence for life (276): Instead of sentience, could life serve as the dividing moral
line? It is hard to justify this because non-sentient life does not experience pleasure,
pain, or desires. How could we go about assessing the relative weights to give
different forms of life? By what metric could we even divide the importance of the
living from the non-living? “Purpose” or “seeking” will not do – we could just as
easily say that a river seeks the sea or a guided missile seeks its target as say that
plants seek water or light.
Deep ecology (280): “Deep ecologists” value nature for its own sake. Can this be
justified? The fact that every species plays a role in an interdependent ecosystem does
not imply that individual organisms have value, since no individual is necessary for
the survival of the ecosystem. Instead, could entire species or ecosystems have
morally relevant interests? Like in the case of extending interests to non-sentient
organisms, there is no intelligible justification for this belief.
Developing an environmental ethic (284): In light of the harm that we can do to all
sentient beings into the very far future, we should develop an ethic that weights
permanent harm to the environment very heavily. It should frown upon extravagant or
unnecessary leisure activities that consume fossil fuels or forests or emit greenhouse
gases. Of particular concern is meat consumption – the factory farming system wastes
over a third of the grain grown in the world and is responsible for a huge amount of
deforestation and greenhouse gas emission.[17]
11. Ends and Means



The end does sometimes justify the means. But which ends justify which means?
Individual conscience and the law (292): Sometimes we must decide whether it
would be the right thing to do to break a law. In doing so, we should consider whether
it is ethically relevant that the specific action is illegal.
Law and order (295): Here are two ethical reasons for obeying the law. They can be
overridden by greater interests, and they do not apply to law-breaking that is kept
secret.
o Obeying the law contributes to an orderly and successful society – not doing so
may encourage others follow suit, leading to the breakdown of order.
o When the law is broken, the community pays the expense of enforcing it and
penalizing the lawbreaker.



Democracy (298)
o If legal channels exist to change laws, we should attempt to use them before
resorting to illegal behavior.
o If we are unable to change an unethical law, it may be ethical to break it. In a
democracy, however, this may involve deciding that our own moral judgment
is better than that of the majority. (In an indirect, representative democracy like
the US, it may not.)
o The majority can clearly be wrong, but we should keep in mind that majority
rule follows from granting each person equal power. Overriding majority rule
gives one person or group more power than others – a system that we would
likely (and in fact did) reject when deciding how to govern society. We should
thus coerce the majority only in extreme circumstances.
Disobedience, civil or otherwise (302):
o Civil disobedience is a peaceful illegal attempt to better bring about majority
rule, either by better informing the public or preventing the government from
frustrating majority rule. It is not difficult to justify once legal means have
been exhausted, since the costs incurred are minimal and democracy is not
undermined.
o In addition to civil disobedience, coercing the majority through illegal action is
justifiable in extremely unethical cases such as nationally supported genocide.
We must judge whether individual cases meet this threshold on our own, since
the majority cannot rule on itself. We should do so carefully, using a rational
consequentialist viewpoint rather than acting on gut feelings.
Violence (307):
o If we reject the ethical distinction between acts and omissions (see Chapter 7 /
Active and passive euthanasia), then pacifism is not justifiable, since the
consequences of allowing violence are the same as committing it.
o There are strong general consequentialist arguments against the use of violence
beyond the direct harm done to the victims. These include that violence may
have a hardening effect on society that begets further and possibly systematic
violence, and that often the effects of violent actions cannot be well foreseen –
in many cases it backfires. These arguments apply more strongly to some types
of violence, such as terrorism, than to others, such as the assassination of a
genocidal tyrant.[18]
o Violence can also be done to property as opposed to sentient beings. This is
easier to justify, but is still subject to the objections above and must be
considered seriously.
o Collecting all forms of violence into a single term, as pacifists do, obscures
differences that are relevant to ethics.
12. Why Act Morally?


Understanding the question (314): This question can be confusing, but if we view a
distinguishing feature of ethics as universalizability – requiring us to make judgments
from a universal viewpoint instead of favoring ourselves – then this question can be
understood to mean “What reasons are there for one to think universally rather than
selfishly?”
Reason and Ethics (318): It is difficult to make a rational justification for acting
ethically (universally) rather than selfishly. Here are two major obstacles, which the
author does not know how to overcome:
o


We at some point must start from some arbitrary assumed goal or preference,
which is not rationally arrived at. For example, it is not irrational for a person
to prefer his lesser good to his greater good, or to prefer the good of different
persons differently.[19]
o Humans are distinct from other humans, and it is counter to common sense to
deny this distinction. Rational action for any individual is concerned with the
quality of her existence as that individual, not with the quality of existence of
other individuals.[20]
Ethics and self-interest (322): Can ethical behavior be motivated by self-interest?
o For practical reasons, society tends to suggest not; that acting ethically is a
matter of motivation – that it must be done for its own sake rather than for any
ulterior motive like self-interest.
o We should reject this viewpoint, since ethics is concerned with the
consequences of actions, not their motivations. To say that one must do what is
right for no reason except that it is right leaves no way to decide what is right.
o Most people do derive happiness from treating others ethically and experience
guilt when they act unethically, aligning self-interest and ethics to a large
degree. Psychopaths are a notable exception.
Has life a meaning? (331): Absent a belief in God, can individuals find meaning in
their lives?
o Most people derive happiness indirectly by striving to achieve long-term goals
that are not directed towards their present happiness. These goals give people a
sense of meaning.
o People who strive only for goals oriented towards their own long-term selfinterest tend not to be satisfied when these goals are accomplished, but rather
find themselves wanting more.
o One way to achieve a more permanent state of happiness and sense of meaning
is to adopt an ethical viewpoint not based on self-interest. A universal ethical
viewpoint transcends our fleeting personal desires, and goals associated with
such a viewpoint are never exhausted.
[1] It happens that the range of interest level across and within human groups today is fairly
narrow, so this principle approximates reasonably well to general equality. This need not be
so in the future, for example in the presence of major human cognitive enhancement or the
creation of artificial utility monsters.
[2] This argument has substantially changed the way that I think about affirmative action.
[3] I would add to this list the higher likelihood of academic failure of a student not
academically qualified for admission, although this does not seem to be a problem for legacy
applicants who are not otherwise qualified.
[4] This may seem at odds with the preceding recommendation of racial affirmative action,
but it is not. That recommendation was based solely on weighing the interests of all involved.
A rule involving race was suggested as a proxy for maximizing those interests.
[5] This seems to overlook that if the satisfaction of the desires would be pleasurable, the
killing lowers the utility that obtains.
[6] It also has the awkward implication that we should make decisions with utter disregard to
their consequences for future generations. It seems to me that the total view is the right one.
[7] Antinatalists take this route, but I have not seen a convincing justification for the
asymmetry.
[8] This section of the book contains rich discussions of slightly tangential topics that I have
omitted for space reasons, including specific consideration of the utilitarian calculus of meat
eating, an interesting thought experiment about the replaceability of potential persons, and
further justification for the irreplaceability of existing persons.
[9] Singer suggests here that we might consider a moral ledger in which a debit is registered
when a preference is created, and canceled with an equal credit when that preference is
satisfied. He notes that this leads to the implausible position that no one should be born, since
not all of their preferences will be satisfied, and the total value of their life will be negative. A
modification of this idea occurs to me that avoids this problem. We can still use the ledger,
but assign a neutral (as opposed to negative) value to the creation of a preference, a positive
value to its satisfaction, and a negative value to its thwarting. This would still imply that
persons are not replaceable. Consider killing an existing person with a single preference worth
V utility when satisfied, and then replacing him. If the ledger starts at 0 before the killing, it
ends at –V after the replacement, since V is subtracted when the preference is thwarted, and 0
is added when the new preference is created. Satisfying the new preference would bring the
ledger back to 0, but satisfying the original preference without the killing would have brought
it to +V.
[10] Infanticide is the topic most responsible for Singer’s controversial reputation.
[11] Although Singer only applies the replaceability argument to disabled infants here, the
argument appears to apply equally to all infants. It may be equally justified for a parent to kill
and replace a healthy infant based on an arbitrary preference, e.g. eye color. It seems unlikely
that parents would wish to do this after having brought the child through gestation and
childbirth, but I see no reason to consider it ethically worse than the case of disability.
[12] This conclusion seems straightforward in the context of this ethical framework, but it is
extremely controversial in America today. This edition of this book was written a few years
before the famous Terri Schiavo case, in which the husband of a woman in a vegetative state
spent seven years in court before winning the right to remove her feeding tube.
[13] I’m not sure that this makes sense. I think that people usually mean that if a person has a
right, acting in accordance with that right is not morally wrong.
[14] The number is now about 25 million.
[15] It’s not clear to me that the virgin nature of an untouched environment is as important to
humans as Singer thinks. If we cut a virgin forest and later reforest it richly but differently
than it was before, how much human interest is lost? Most people do not consider themselves
greatly harmed by the fact that they live in a world in which almost all of the virgin ecologies
of Earth’s history have been wiped out by meteors and ice ages.
[16] This idea has interesting implications in other areas of ethics that Singer does not
mention here. Since there will (hopefully) be many more people in the future than there are
now, it would seem that that any good we can do for all such future people might be worth
significant sacrifice and harm to existing people. For instance, this could justify involuntary
and harmful medical experimentation on humans in order to cure diseases like cancer. In
applying the principle of equal consideration of interests, the sheer number of future people
may justify practices that we find abhorrent when we only think about existing people. How
much would we regret it if the cure for cancer had been found a century ago through torturous
experiments on a group of 1000 unwilling people? Justification of any such practice would be
subject to an estimation of how long the goal would take to achieve in the absence of the
practice – if the practice advances the goal by only one or two generations, the calculation is
much less compelling.
[17] Singer takes this idea to an extreme conclusion, recommending a frugal life devoid of
unnecessary leisure trips and energy-intensive activities like water-skiing. I think that he may
have too rigid an idea of what kind of environmental damage is sure to be permanent. For
instance, it has been recently found that the green surface area of the Earth has been growing
significantly over the past 35 years, an effect tentatively attributed to the CO2 increase in the
atmosphere. It also seems plausible that technological advances in the future may be able to
mitigate the environmental damage we do today. Still, in the face of great uncertainty, perhaps
a conservative approach is warranted.
[18] I think that Singer’s arguments in this section imply that terrorism against civilians may
be justifiable in certain cases if the outcome is relatively certain. He suggests that such cases
are very unlikely in practice, but this is interesting to note.
[19] I find this somewhat unconvincing. The principle of equal consideration of interests
respects a natural symmetry between human beings – it is invariant when considered from any
specific person’s viewpoint. Any other principle, such as preferring self-interest, breaks that
symmetry in an arbitrary way. Even if respecting this symmetry is unimportant, this idea of
assuming a starting point implies that it is no more rational to choose self-interest than any
other preference.
[20] I do not see how this follows. It seems to me to be based on intuition, not logic.